


The First Year

by thankyouturtle



Series: Two Steps Forward [1]
Category: Chalet School - Brent-Dyer
Genre: F/M, Growing Up, Jealousy, Long Distance Relationship, Post-Canon, Romance, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reg has one or two hard lessons to learn while Len's at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Year

**Author's Note:**

> My object in writing this story was to try and make Reg as likeable as possible without entirely ridding him of his canon traits. He's certainly one of the most disliked characters of the series, but I always thought his problem was being badly written by an author not adept at romance and trying her hardest to get Len hitched before the end inevitably came, more than Reg actually being a terrible person. So - hopefully - here is a story in which Reg's possessiveness of Len in _Reunion_ and onwards makes some kind of sense, and Reg himself is a somewhat more sympathetic character.
> 
> Incidentally, even though this occurs _before_ [Conversation over Coffee](http://archiveofourown.org/works/14487), it was written after, so one or two details don't quite match up...

Saying goodbye at the station was even harder than Reg had thought it would be. He and Len had spent most of their summer together, when he wasn't working, and thought of not seeing her again for months made him feel like his heart was being ripped out. Hang it, he _would_ rip his heart out if he thought it would keep her from leaving.

"I could come with you to London," he said, not for the first time. "It's not too late for me to get a ticket."

"Don't be silly, darling," Len told him. "How on Earth would Papa cope at the San without you? Besides, Con and I will be together, so it's not like anything could possibly happen to me." Reg subsided, not least because that was the first time she had called him 'darling'. Besides, what was he going to say to her? That he was worried that the first second she was out of his sight that she'd realise that he was nothing but a dumb village kid? That she'd know he'd never really be good enough for her, and find some poncy git who _was_?

It was far better to say nothing at all, to just kiss her sweetly when Dr Maynard tactfully suggested his daughters better get moving if they weren't going to miss the train (and how Reg wished Len would miss it!) and cheerfully promise to write every week; to smile at Stephen and Felicity's gentle teasing when they saw the tears in their mother's eyes; to make his way slowly back to the apartment he shared with Hamilton trying not to weep like a baby himself.

"Hard luck," Hamilton said as soon as he saw Reg's face. "Still, the end of the semester isn't that far away, is it? Time will fly by."

And what did Hamilton know, Reg thought furiously as he entered his own room. _He_ had never been in love. At least, he amended, not the same way that Reg was. Hamilton was sighing after a new girl every week, but Len was the only girl there had ever been for him. He glanced over at the stack of notepaper he'd bought, just especially for writing to Len. Maybe he should tell her so? She had only just left, it was true, but it would be a while before the letter arrived for her anyway...

_Dear Len,_ he wrote, _we've only just said goodbye but it already feels so strange that you aren't here._

...it was _two whole weeks_ before he heard back from her.

_Dear Reg_ she had written, _thank you for all three of your letters! It was so lovely to hear from you, although I must say your handwriting at times is almost illegible. I miss you too, you know, although life is already so busy I'm surprised I have time to miss anything at all!_ He was so relieved to hear from her that he replied straight away, almost running to the post office so that he'd catch the afternoon mail run. When he returned, breathless but triumphant, Hamilton eyed him with a bemused expression.

"You're not still stuck on her, are you?" he asked. "I mean, she's only a kid, Entwistle." Reg stared, as his friend continued, "Take my advice, get out of it while you still can! You'll be much happier that way, believe me."

"We're _engaged_," Reg replied. "You don't just get out of that - even if I wanted to, which I don't! Just - stay out of my affairs, will you?" Angry, he went to his desk and picked up his pen. _I'll be glad when we're married, and have our own house_, he wrote to Len.

_Did you know_ she replied three weeks later, _I hadn't even realised that we'd be living by ourselves when we were married._

How had Len not realised? It was all he could think about, some days! Him, and Len, in their own house - and then him and Len and a house filled with children, three boys and two girls, and - didn't Len think about the future at all? Hadn't she thought about what life would be like? What they'd call their kids? His stomach felt tight. If she didn't think about those things then what _did_ she think about? Or did she not think about them because she didn't want to? Because deep down she knew that their engagement would never turn into a marriage?

He resolved not to write about the future any more. Instead, he wrote about the Platz - the joke the nurses played on Matron Graves at the San, the School's Christmas Play, the snow that fell and closed the roads for a day, causing mass confusion. _I know you're staying with your aunt and uncle for Christmas_, he wrote, _but I can't wait to see you when your semester is over._

Her reply was held up in all the Christmas mail; it arrived in the new year, along with a belated Christmas Card and a hand-knitted jumper. _Oh Reg_, she wrote, _I'm dreadfully sorry, but my friend Sarah and her brother Sam have invited me home for the holidays. I'm so sorry - but I couldn't say no._

For two nights Reg lay awake, unable to sleep. Sam, was it? He must be the reason that Len decided not to come home. Reg could just imagine him, charismatic, handsome, charming, intelligent, taking Len back to his country estate. Len was right - there was no way she could say no to that, not when her other option was dull, ordinary, village boy Reg. He had no chance. He wondered why he'd ever thought he had.

_I hope you have a lovely time_ he wrote back to her. _Thank you very much for the jumper._ He didn't bother to tell her he missed her. She probably didn't care.

  


***

  


  
For a while, it seemed as though the hurt would never go away. Reg had been looking forward to seeing Len at the end of the semester so much, and now there was nothing for him to look forward to at all. He kept writing letters to her, because he didn't know what else to do, but while he'd found it easy to fill the sheets before, now he found himself staring at the blank paper and trying desperately to think of something to write other than _Please don't stop loving me._

_I don't think I'm getting all of your letters_, Len wrote back. _There don't seem to be as many of them as there used to_. His heart had started racing as soon as he'd seen his name on the envelope, sure that this would be the time that she was finally going to tell him. But it wasn't, just the usual bubbly chatter about her friends and life at Oxford, and he smiled to read how happy she was until he remembered, again, that at least part of her happiness must be over a man that wasn't him.

_I'm frantically busy at the San, I'm afraid_. It wasn't exactly a lie, either. Dr Sheppard had twisted his knee badly and was lain up in bed (Mrs Sheppard was heard to say unsympathetically that it served him right for attempting that ski jump, at his age) and Dr Maynard had asked Reg to pick up some of his patients. He'd only been too pleased to - at first, because the extra work took his mind of Len, and then, because he realised that the extra responsibility meant that Dr Maynard thought he was more than capable of tackling it.

Would he still be pleased with him when he found out about Len? No, Dr Maynard wasn't like that - he treated him like just another employee at work, whatever his feelings were towards him in private. That, at least, was one less thing to worry about. Reg loved his work, and he didn't know what he'd do if he lost his job as well as losing Len. But then, he'd give his job up in a moment if Len asked it of him...

Things at the San got more chaotic. They always did, this time of year, even without one of their doctors down. Tourists injured themselves on skis or toboggans, or recklessly lost themselves on hikes up the mountains and needed treatment once they'd been found again; and the cold brought with it illness for many of the locals, too. Reg barely noticed as January slipped into February, burying himself in work as much as he could.

Then, catching a quick tea break in the doctor's lounge one afternoon, Reg found himself in the company of Con Maynard. He hadn't seen her until he had already entered the room, and before he could beat a hasty retreat she had glance up and seen him, and was waving him over. He reluctantly joined her.

"Hello, Reg!" she said sunnily. "I've been waiting all day to see you. I thought maybe you weren't going to take a break at all, but Len wouldn't let me leave London until I'd promised to come and see you the _very first day_ I got home."

"Len?" Reg repeated stupidly.

"Yes; she was so miserable, you know, not to be coming. I told her it was her own fault, agreeing to go home with Sarah Fowke, but she never was any good at saying no to people, and she said in all good conscious she couldn't let Sarah spend a whole three weeks alone with that _dreadful_ brother of hers."

Reg stared. This chatty girl was not the Con Maynard he remembered; Oxford had clearly changed her. Not in a bad way, he didn't think - there was an air of confidence about her which was quite surprising. "I thought she was looking forward to it," was all he said.

"Making the best of a bad job, I suppose! Anyway, she declared me postman and sent you a parcel. I was going to bring it with me today, but Mama said you're to come to Abendessen with us tonight and you're not allowed to say no this time."

He had turned down her two last invitations, Reg thought guiltily. He hadn't felt like facing the Maynards, knowing that Len was likely to be a topic of conversation and not wanting to accidentally tell them - well, anything, really.

"Oh, don't look like that," Con added, misunderstanding his expression. "She's invited around the Peters as well - do come, otherwise I'll be stuck talking to grown-ups all evening."

That made Reg grin. "Aren't you a grown-up, now?" he asked.

"Never! Well, not yet, anyway, not when it comes to things like dinner parties!"

"Dr Entwistle?" One of the nurses had poked her head through the door. "Um, sorry to interrupt you, but Mrs Pinkerton is asking for you..."

"Coming," Reg replied quickly. "Con - tell your mum I will be over for dinner tonight, won't you?" Hearing what Con had just said about Len - well, he was starting to feel a little bewildered. Maybe if he had a chance to talk to her for a little longer he'd be able to understand what was going on.

Snow was falling as Reg arrived at Freudesheim. He glanced warily up at the sky, hoping the flurry wasn't going to turn into a storm. After all, depending on what he heard from Con, he might be looking to make a quick exit. He let out a slight sigh and stamped his feet to lose the excess snow, then rapped smartly on the door.

To his surprise it wasn't Anna who opened the it, but the lady of the house herself. That was something of a relief, actually - Anna's approval was rather harder to gain than that of her employers', and he still wasn't sure if she approved of _him_. Mrs Maynard, on the other hand, looked perfectly happy to see him, if somewhat frazzled. "Sorry," she said, by way of greeting, "the twins have been playing up all day today and now Phil's refusing to be bathed! And Anna's scalded herself - not badly, but we're not letting her do anything but rest. Luckily most of the actual cooking was already done, and Con and I can manage to do the rest of it by ourselves." She paused to take a breath. "Anyway - what I meant to say was, I can't play gracious hostess just yet! And Jack's gone around to the Peters' to collect them, so there isn't anyone for you to talk to - you'll have to entertain yourself."

"Can't I do anything to help?" Reg asked. Mrs Maynard shook her head. "We're fine, really - or will be, once I've convinced Phil that cleanliness is next to godliness! We've plenty of magazines - why don't you have a read until Jack returns?"

Reg gladly acquiesced, feeling slightly guilty over his happiness at _not_ having been asked to help in the bathing of Phil! But no sooner had he sat down with one of Dr Maynard's medical journals than the most horribly discordant sound began to fill the room. It was little Marie-Claire, happily thumping away at the black-and-white keys.

"Hello," Reg said carefully, eyeing her night-clothes and rumpled hair. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Marie-Claire stopped her thumping and looked back at him with steady brown eyes. "No," she said.

Most men Reg's age were somewhat nervous dealing with children, he knew, but he had no such problems. Between his dealings with the children of patients up at the San, and his long relationship with the Maynards, he had a fair amount of confidence with them; so now he scooped Marie-Claire up off the piano stool and into his arms.

For a moment, it looked as though she would come quietly. Then, turning her head, she added a second, "No!" and clearly liking the sound of it, began wriggling as hard as she could while her cries of "No! No! No!" grew louder and louder. Reg grimly gripped her more securely, which put an end to the wriggling, although not to the yelling, which got increasingly shriller. Reg did his best to ignore it as he carried her upstairs and headed for the nursery. At the door she suddenly stopped, and hiccuped.

"You tell people they're bad when they're bein' bad," she told him sternly. "And that's why you should say, 'Claire, you're bad!'"

It took Reg a moment to unravel what she was saying. "Are you being bad, Claire?" he asked.

"Mama put me to bed," she replied by way of explanation.

"And then you got out of bed again. Do you want to go back there now?" Marie-Claire nodded and, shoving her thumb into her mouth, rested her head against his shoulder. She was asleep in a matter of seconds, and Reg thought how nice it must be to just be able to fall asleep like that, without lying awake worrying that your fiancee might not be in love with you any more.

He'd just tucked her back into her cot when Mrs Maynard appeared, her clothes now noticeably damp. "What-" she started to say, but Reg put his finger to his lips and she nodded, waiting for him out in the hallway. "Was that Claire?" she asked when he joined her, her features settling into a worried frown. Reg explained what had happened and she groaned. "I thought she'd outgrown her tantrums! Thank you, Reg, you really are an angel! Is she sleeping now?"

Reg didn't think he resembled an angel particularly, but he reassured her that her youngest was in fact asleep now, and Mrs Maynard sighed. "Well! I've finally got Phil and Geoff in bed, and Rosalie is telling them a story, so hopefully that's the end of it. I can't think what it is that's got them all so worked up today. Even my Cecil managed to get herself into an argument with the Coadjutor - well, she tried, anyway." She grinned suddenly. "Did you say Claire was banging on the piano? Perhaps we'll have a pianist in the family at last." She thanked him again for his help, the shooed him back downstairs so she "could make herself fit to be seen".

Reg once more made himself comfortable in the salon. It wasn't long before he heard Dr Maynard cheerful cry of "We're home!" and then Phoebe entered the room, leaning firmly on Dr Peters as she did so. Her face lit up when she saw Reg, and he hastily stood up and strode over to greet her.

"It's been such a long time since I saw you," she said regretfully when their first greetings were over. "I've had my hands full with little Jack, though - and Frank said you've been frightfully busy at work."

Frank laughed. "You'd have guests over every single day if Debby wasn't there to stop you from over-exerting yourself," he said, with a great deal of fondness in his voice. Then, "Would you two mind if I left you for a moment? Jack had some papers he wanted me to look over - it won't take long."

"That's fine - Reg will look after me, won't you, dear?" Reg agreed, and he lead her over to the sofa. "I had a bit of a cold last week, and Frank always gets so worried when I'm sick," Phoebe explained once her husband had left. "It will take another week before he'll stop - well, Joey calls it 'hovering like a maiden aunt', although Jack is just as bad when she's sick, so she can't talk! The price of marrying a doctor, I'm afraid."

Reg looked at Phoebe in surprise. He'd known her since he was a kid himself - in fact, he'd considered her his only friend until the arrival of the Maynards. He'd been incredibly jealous when she'd first announced her engagement, but had quickly learned that that would not mean the end of their friendship. They'd remained close, but this was the first time he'd ever heard her say anything of the kind.

"I never really thought - it must get awfully annoying," he responded tamely.

"In a way, but I know that it's only because Frank worries, and he only worried because he cares. But I can't see, say, your Len putting up with it."

Reg grimaced. He could imagine exactly what would happen if he started 'hovering' over Len over a trifling cold, and it mostly involved him getting an earful from her. "I don't think she'd enjoy it," he said wryly.

"Speaking of Len, how is she? Jo's always complaining she doesn't get enough letters from the triplets. I did tell her that you wrote to me a grand total of twice during your first year of study." Phoebe's tone was gently teasing.

"She- writes to me more often than that." How could he have forgotten? Life had suddenly seemed so _full_ at university. He'd barely had time to read all the texts he was meant to for his classes, let alone time to write to old friends. Compared to him, Len was a marvellously frequent letter-writer. "She's really enjoying everything, I think," he added.

"And how are you? You look a little thin - have you been looking after yourself? Not working too hard?" Phoebe looked at him searchingly. "Have you been eating alright?"

"Yes, fine Phoebe - honestly."

"Even though you're living with Ian Hamilton?" asked a dry voice from the door, and Mrs Maynard sailed into the room, looking surprisingly fresh for someone who only recently had been half-drowned by her daughter. "He made me a cup of tea up at the San when I was visiting, last week, and although it's not meant to be possible to burn water-"

Phoebe burst out laughing. "Oh, Joey! No one is as terrible as that."

Mrs Maynard didn't look convinced. "Perhaps not; it really was an awful cup of tea, though. If that's a sample of his cooking I shouldn't like to eat anything he'd cooked."

"He's not that bad, Mrs Maynard," Reg said. "At least - well, I've had worse. And my own cooking is - well, it's edible."

"You and Len will make a fine pair!" she replied, rather cryptically as far as Reg was concerned. "Now then, where did the other two get to? Oh _there_ you are," as Frank and Dr Maynard appeared, "Con just found me to say that Abendessen is ready, so if we would like to make our way to the dining room we shall be served!" Reg helped Phoebe to her feet and offered her his arm, and the party entered the next room and seated themselves around the table.

The meal was nowhere near Anna's standard, but it was delicious all the same; and with Con beaming proudly over the roast beef Reg wasn't going to mention the fact that the potatoes were a little crispier than usual and the gravy was on the watery side. Besides, he and Hamilton seldom went in for anything more complicated than a slab of salt pork with fried potatoes and maybe a bit of salad, so getting a genuine roast was heavenly.

Phoebe and Mrs Maynard were soon embroiled in a deep discussion about Phoebe's Lucy and Felicity Maynard, comparing notes on what their latest fads were. Both of them were still mad for ballet, it seemed, and Reg tried to listen with interest to what the two women were saying but failed miserably. Frank and Dr Maynard were talking animatedly about the economy, which in Reg's opinion was even worse. He had no head for business, and was glad that at the San he could concentrate on medicine alone.

Con, sitting on his right, was eyeing a forkful of potato warily. "I don't think Anna's are ever this _crunchy_," she remarked to him.

"It's a nice change," Reg replied hastily. "I always undercook mine and end up eating them almost raw. These are done all the way through." The look Con gave him suggested she was not fooled at all by his reassurances, but she stopped staring at her fork and popped it into her mouth instead. Casting around for something to say, Reg asked her how university was going. She'd probably been asked that by every person she'd met since getting home, but she didn't seem offended by it.

"Marvellous," she enthused. "It's like going to one of Auntie Hilda's English lessons, except every class is like that. And everyone treats us like we're adults - like what we think about the books and poems is actually really interesting! We're even allowed to _argue_," she added, sounding slightly awed. Reg bit back a laugh.

"So you're enjoying it, then," he said.

"That's putting it mildly! It's miraculous - fantastic - stupendous! _And_ a group of us are starting a poetry club. That's the best thing - finding other people who like the same things that I do. There was never anything like that at school."

"A poetry club? That sounds wonderful!" Phoebe and Mrs Maynard had stopped chatting and were listening intently to Con instead. "You must be making a lot of new friends, Con," Phoebe added, and Reg's stomach suddenly twisted. Len would be making new friends too, without him.

"It's marvellous," Con said happily, "except -" and she frowned suddenly "- that _awful_ Sam Fowke is in the club too, and no one else seems to realise how dreadful he is. Oh, he can write," she admitted grudgingly, "but he argues with everything I say, and no one else even notices how irritating he is!"

Mrs Maynard looked concerned. "Isn't he the young man who Len is staying with at the moment? Why in the world would she visit someone so unpleasant?"

"Oh, it's Sarah that Len's friends with, not Sam," Con replied, her vexation dissipating. "She barely knows him at all, although I don't think she likes him any more than I do. Sarah and he don't get on, you know, and since their parents are away Len was worried that Sarah's holidays would be dreadful without someone there to keep them from each others' throats. Besides, she sort of had to accept the invitation after-" she cut herself off abruptly and looked with some consternation at her mother, who shook her head.

"After what?" Reg asked, curious.

"Wait and see," Mrs Maynard said mysteriously. "Phoebe, dear, weren't you saying just the other day that you had a commission to embroider an illustration for the _Lady of Shalott_? Perhaps Con might have some ideas on it - it was her favourite poem when she was younger." Thus the conversation turned, and Reg was left wondering what there was to be so mysterious about. Then, knowing that asking Mrs Maynard would only make her worse, he helped himself to another slice of beef and pondered instead what Con had said.

It really would be just like Len to go to someone's aid even at the expense of what she wanted, he realised. She was a born peacemaker - that was one of the things he loved about her, and he wouldn't change that for the world. It didn't sound like she knew this Fowke fellow at all, really, and even if Con had been oddly vehement in her dislike for him, it was hard to imagine Len having any feeling for such a man beyond that for a friend's brother. It was only his own silly jealousy that had made him imagine that she must have fallen in love with someone else - so much for having learned his lesson there over Phoebe!

Sitting in the Maynard's dining room, glaring at his plate, Reg silently berated himself for causing his own misery. Worse - in doing so, he was acting like Len was some fickle creature who would forget about him the moment he was out of sight. He'd have to find some way to make it up to her - sooner, rather than later.

  


  


***

  


  
_It was so irritating having to wait to find out what you had sent me_, Reg wrote to Len the next night in the doctor's lounge. _It seemed like everyone knew but me, and you Maynards are so awful about keeping secrets - awful in that you keep them, I mean! But finally, when we'd cleared up dinner, I was allowed to be presented with a large-ish box, and a letter._

Con asked me if I wasn't going to open the letter first, but I wanted to be alone to read it - I think your parents and Phoebe and Frank understood that alright, because your mother just shushed Con and told me to open up the box. So I did, and you can probably imagine my astonishment when I saw what was inside - at first I was amazed that you'd just managed to make so much fudge, and then Con pointed out it was in layers, and there was coconut ice, and biscuits - and all those sweets that I loved as a kid and never get to eat any more! I think it's the best present anyone has ever given me, and you can bet that they're now hidden away in my room where Hamilton can't find them.

Con told me that you'd been using Sarah Fowke's aunt's kitchen to do your baking, and that was why you didn't want to turn down the invitation to stay with her these holidays, even though you wanted to come home. And that made me realise that there's something I have to tell you, even though you may despise me after I confess. Don't worry, it's not as though I've committed murder, but I couldn't possibly be feeling any more miserable about that then I'm feeling about what I have done. So here goes.

I have been horribly, hopelessly, idiotically jealous the whole time you've been away. I keep imagining you off with some rich and handsome intellectual having a lovely time and forgetting all about me. But then, when I realised just how long it must have taken you to make all those sweets - and knowing that you must have been thinking about me the whole time - well, to say that I feel foolish is to put it lightly. Worse, I know that if I had just said something to you sooner, you would have called me ten kinds of an idiot but then explained that there was no such thing going on. Instead, it's just been going round and round my mind, and I've been taking it out on you.

Please, for goodness sake, don't start worrying that you've done something wrong to make me feel like this. You haven't, really, it's been all in my own head. And I don't want you to feel like it's your problem to solve, either. It's up to me to fix it, if I can. If you'll let me.

I will understand if you despise me, I will. Jealousy isn't exactly a nice thing to have in a future husband, and I'm sure that you don't want it in yours. The only thing I can say is that if you don't utterly despise me I'll promise, from now on, never to let my jealousy get the better of me again.

Reg stopped, sucking the end of his pen. There wasn't really anything else to say that wouldn't seem out of place after pouring his heart out like that. He'd thought about slipping something in to the envelope, as a thank you for the present she'd sent, but that would seem too much as though he was saying, "Sorry for being such a nuisance: here's a picture postcard to make up for it." He wanted her to know that he'd meant every word.

_All my love,  
Reg_

He sealed the envelope and slipped it into the outgoing mailbag before he had a chance to change his mind.

  


 

  


  


***

  


 

_Dearest Reg,_

It would be lying to say I wasn't hurt when I read your letter. I was horribly angry, to think that you thought I could be like that - so fickle as to fall in love with someone else, and so mean as to not tell you straight away if I had done, but just string you along like a puppet! I hate girls like that - and men too! - and I was dreadfully hurt that you had imagined I might be that sort of person.

Only, I have a confession to make too, and if you hadn't made yours I'd never have worked up the courage to make mine. But if I didn't I'd be a hypocrite, and I think the "do as I say, not as I do" people are the very worst! Because, you see, ever since I arrived in London I've been imagining all kinds of horrible things about you back in the Oberland, falling in love with some gorgeous nurse and forgetting all about me. At first, when you were writing all the time, I managed to bury it - but as your letters became less frequent I was sure that you were being tempted away by some kind of beautiful medical Siren. I found it harder and harder to write to you - but I was thinking about you all the time. When Sarah suggested we do some baking together you were the only one I wanted tasting what I made!

It all built up in my head so badly that when it came to the holidays I was too scared to even go home. I was so sure that when I did you wouldn't even want to see me, or that you were waiting to tell me face-to-face about your new girlfriend. Sarah's invitation gave me a good excuse not to go home, but I spent the whole time I was away wishing that I hadn't accepted. I don't know how everything managed to get so muddled in my head. It all seemed so simple when we decided to get engaged, and now it seems complicated. Except, that, it's not really complicated. I still love you; I still want to marry you. That wouldn't ever change, no matter how far apart we were!

I wish I knew that my letter was convincing you; I wish I could be there to see you while you were reading it. I wish that I could see you to convince you of it myself! I can be very_ convincing, you know. But perhaps you'll believe me when I tell you this, which is something I've never told anybody before - that you are the very first thing which is _mine_ and mine alone._

Isn't that awful? I know you belong to your patients, as well, when you're working, and some of them are going to think that you belong to them even when you're not working. But when we're alone you'll be mine_, not mine-and-Con's-and-Margot's, not mine-but-used-to-be-Josette's-or-Sybil's, just mine. And that's why I've been such a mess, I think. Because you're the very first person, the very first _thing_ that's been just mine and no one else's, and that's never happened to me before._

And I'm yours - really and truly yours, always,  
Len

Having read Len's letter through several times, Reg lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It was almost funny, really, to think that both of them had been thinking and worrying about the other and not daring to breathe a word of it, although he didn't feel like laughing about it particularly.

  
He carefully folded the letter back up along the creases and slid it into its envelope. He and Len needed to talk - to properly talk, not just write letters! He wondered if it could wait until she finally came back - or if leaving it any longer would only deepen the problems that they were already having?

  


 

  


  


***

  


 

It would have been clear to any onlooker that the man and girl sitting on a lonely park bench were more to each other than just friends. It was there, in the way the young man was holding her hand, and the way she was leaning to one side, so that her head was almost resting on his shoulder. Any onlooker noticing these things may have been surprised, then, to hear just how awkward the conversation between the two was.

"It's - it's nice here," Reg said. There were so many things that he _needed_ to say, but so hard to know where to start. He'd meant to borrow a car from a friend after his plane had landed and drive to Len's residence to surprise her - only to find that Phoebe had 'phoned ahead and warned Len he was coming. The surprise had been all his, seeing her at the airport waiting for him, and the two had embraced with rather more passion than was perhaps proper in such a public place. Reg had asked her to take him somewhere where they could talk, and she'd brought him here, to this almost-deserted park, where they wouldn't be interrupted. But - well, they needn't worry about being interrupted if he couldn't even figure out how to talk to her.

"I come here to study sometimes," Len offered in reply, "Now that the weather has cleared up a little."

Reg grinned. Despite the sunny sky, Len was wearing a thick woollen jumper, and he wouldn't be surprised if there were long stockings underneath her jeans. "I don't miss that about England at all," he said with feeling. "At least on the Platz it gets warm in summer - properly hot, I mean. None of this moderate nonsense."

"And properly cold in winter," Len sighed. "I never thought I'd be homesick for snowstorms, but it barely dropped below freezing last January. I don't want to have another winter without snow. And - and I don't want to have another year without you." Len squeezed Reg's hand tight. "I know I said I wanted to get my degree before we got married, but-"

"No!" The word came out of Reg's mouth before he realised what he was saying, and Len pulled away from him in surprise. "Len, don't even say it. You've always wanted to teach - how can you do that if you don't have your degree? Even if you meant to continue on at university, if we got married it'd probably be even harder for us to be separated, and you'd offer to give it up, and I wouldn't be strong enough to tell you not to."

Len's face flushed. Reg winced, thinking that he'd made her angry, but instead of yelling at him she said, in an embarrassed sort of way, "I think - once we're married and - and living together - it _will_ be hard to leave you again." She was blushing at the thought of them living together, Reg realised, but hid his amusement, not wanting to hurt her feelings. "But I really don't know if it's worth it, Reg. Neither of us are any good at being away from the other; I think that's perfectly clear."

Reg shook his head. "You didn't do anything wrong - it was all me! If I'd just told you what was the matter with me-" he began, but Len interrupted him.

"I could just as easily say the same thing! I made myself so miserable over you that I've been missing out on all kinds of things - that 'university life' that Con, and Margot, are getting to enjoy! Wouldn't it just be easier to just leave?"

She leaned back into him, as Reg thought. It almost did make sense, when she put it like that; and yet, Reg noticed, she had said that she was 'missing out', not that she didn't enjoy university. If she hated the place then certainly she should leave - but not because the two of them hadn't quite figured out how they belonged to each other just yet. "You shouldn't be the one to leave," he found himself saying abruptly.

"What do you mean?" Len asked doubtfully.

"Exactly what I said. You should stay on at university, Len. Give it at least another year and see how it suits you - you've only been unhappy this year because of us, not because of Oxford, haven't you?"

"I - I suppose," Len stammered.

"Then why leave? But me - _I_ could leave. I could move closer to London. At the very least I'm sure I could persuade your father to transfer me to the Welsh San. It wouldn't be perfect, but I'd be a lot closer; it would be less than a day's travel for me to come and see you."

Len turned and raised her eyes to Reg's face. "You love working at the San," she said. It wasn't a question, but Reg shook his head again, anyway.

"I _like_ working at the San," he replied, and it was only a little lie, if it meant Len could continue studying and feel happy about it. "I expect I could be just as happy somewhere else." She looked at him searchingly for a moment, and Reg _knew_ she didn't believe him - and yet, her face broke into a smile and she threw her arms around his neck.

  


***

  


  
Reg watched his fiancée's face uncertainly as she contemplated his new abode. "You don't look like you approve," he said at last.

"It's fine, I suppose, but it's just so... _masculine_."

Reg laughed. "What did you expect? Its previous owners were both doctors - oh, male doctors, then, if you're so particular! - and neither Hamilton nor I are much in the way of interior decorators."

"But the garden!" Len shook her head. "You could at least plant some flowers, couldn't you?"

Reg suspected that anything he planted would last perhaps a week before giving up the ghost, but at the look that Len gave him said, "I'll ask Mrs Lloyd if there's anyone around who could do some gardening work, when she's in on Tuesday. The next time you come I'll have a whole garden of- of marigolds, or something."

"Jonquils," Len told him sternly, "and daffodils, I think."

"Jonquils and daffodils," Reg promised solemnly. "At least that way when you get bored with me you'll have something pretty to look at."

"Then what am I going to do when I'm bored _this_ weekend?" Len teased.

"I'm sure we'll think of something," Reg returned, and she smiled and moved towards him purposefully, and nothing more was said for quite some time. Finally, however, they were interrupted by the sound of raised voices from outside, and Len drew away from him with a sigh.

"Come on," she said. "We'd better interrupt them before Con tries to strangle the poor boy."

"He'd probably enjoy that," Reg murmured, but he followed her outside into the little barren square that would, perhaps, soon be a garden full of flowers. He had thrown out rugs, that morning, with the idea of treating his visitors to a picnic lunch if it didn't pour with rain; and now Hamilton sat on one, trying to engage Sarah Fowke's interest, and Con and Sarah's brother sat on the other, arguing. It was hard for Reg to believe that he'd ever entertained the idea that Len and Sam might have feelings for each other. For one thing, Len so clearly thought of him as a boy, not as a man she could rely on and be relied on by; and for another, the poor chap was so far gone on Con it seemed unlikely that he'd even noticed that Len was female.

"How could you even suggest that?" Con was demanding of him now. "Everything he wrote was so deeply symbolic - clearly, the whole poem is a tribute to the despair he over his own unattainable lover. It's written as a fairy-story, but-"

"And he could easily have _meant_ it as a fairy-story," Fowke retorted. "Plenty of legends tell of fairies as cruel and uncaring, which you'd know if you'd get rid of those French notions of yours -"

Seeing that a strangling was not imminent, Reg steered Len towards the other rug, where Sarah looked up an smiled at them both. She was quite a colourless thing, particularly compared to her brother's dark good looks, and Reg wondered, not for the first time, what had drawn Len to her.

"Dr Hamilton was just saying that he wasn't altogether taken with your move to Wales," she said, in her quiet voice. "What do you think of it, Reg?"

"It suits me very well," Reg said, with a laughing glance at Len. Sarah smiled, but shook her head.

"Of course - I meant the idea of an exchange, though. Do you think it was a good idea, for doctors from the Welsh Sanatorium to work for yours, and for you to work for theirs? Or would you rather stay where you were, in Switzerland?"

Reg considered the question as he and Len sat down. "It's too soon to say, really. I've lived on the Platz for a while now, and have plenty of friends there. But I think I'll like it here, too, once I'm used to it. The village I grew up in was a lot like this one, so in that sense I feel quite at home. And I think I'll enjoy working at the San, once I know my way around a little more."

"It's because they speak English here," Hamilton put in. "If you could call it English. Still better than that awful German tosh they talk in Switzerland. But it's not the greatest of schemes, really - can't see the point of changing countries just to do the same job somewhere else."

"Jolly good scheme, I think," Sarah said, her voice polite but definite. "I imagine doctors who meet a lot of different patients are rather more sympathetic to everyone. Doctors who only treat one kind of patient - say rich, Swiss clients - aren't going to know the first thing about dealing with people who _don't_ have much money, are they?"

"Er - gosh, you're absolutely right," Hamilton replied quickly. Reg changed his mind about Sarah - she clearly had an intelligent mind and a great strength of will underneath her quiet looks, and it would probably take a greater man than Hamilton to make an impression on her. Still, Hamilton obviously hadn't realised that for himself yet, and Reg wasn't going to disillusion him.

"Not absolutely right," Len put in. "My father once told me that his experience during the war did more to help him understand his patients than years and years of practising. He was in hospital himself as a patient then, and he said he just had to get along with the other patients and the doctors and nurses, no matter who they were, or what they believed in, or where they'd come from." She smiled at Reg. "Someone could treat no one but rich Swiss clients, as you put it, for years, but if their own background has hardship in it they're unlikely to forget it."

And that was true, Reg thought, although he'd never thought of it like that before. He may be just a village kid, but that meant that when he was treating other village kids, or the adults that had been village kids - well, he knew better than most the things they worried about. That their illness might cause them to lose their job, that their family would then have no income, that even if they did get treatment they wouldn't be able to afford it.

"She's not talking that Communist nonsense again, is she?" Sarah's brother called across to the little group. Sarah's face flamed, and she was no longer quite so colourless.

"It's not communism!" she replied heatedly, "It's plain common or garden sense-"

Len tugged suddenly on Reg's arm. "I think it's time to bring lunch out," she said, straight-faced. "Don't you?"

They made their escape to the kitchen, where Len let out a sigh. "Sorry! But once those two start on politics there's no stopping them, and Con is just as bad - gosh, I suppose I shouldn't have left Ian out there!"

"Hamilton will be fine," Reg informed her. "He'll agree with anything Sarah says-"

"Which will drive her nuts," Len finished with a grin. "In that case, I'll leave him to it. But next time I come for a visit I'll make sure to come alone!"

"It's not that bad. They're all nicely entertained out there, and here we are by ourselves inside..."

Saying goodbye at the station at the end of the weekend was hard, of course. It would probably always be hard to say goodbye to Len. But he no longer felt like his heart was being ripped out - this was no longer a big, insurmountable problem. He'd see her again, maybe even in a few weeks' time, and after that they'd be together for Christmas at Lady Russell's home; and Mrs Maynard was already starting to hint to him, in her letters, that he and Len really ought to start thinking about how big a wedding they'd be wanting in two year's time, because they'd need time to find a chapel which was the right size and a pastor who'd be happy to marry them.

"Don't forget the flowers," Len told him firmly, after the others had said their thank-yous and farewells. Then she threw her arms around his neck and whispered, "I'll miss you."

"Me, too," Reg whispered back. "But I'll see you soon."

"Very soon," Len agreed.

"Hurry up, Len!" Con called out a carriage window. "I'm not giving any excuses for you if you don't make it back to London for class tomorrow."

Len gave a gasp and raced for the door of the train, reappearing at Con's window to wave to Reg. He waved back, and kept waving as the train pulled away from the station, only stopping when it disappeared around a corner, and from his sight. He stood for a moment longer, almost as if he was expecting it to come chugging back towards him in reverse; then resolutely turned, shoving his hands into his pockets, and strode briskly back to his car.


End file.
